Damage behaviour of concrete beams reinforced with GFRP bars

The purpose of this paper is to present the entire damage evolution process of concrete beams reinforced with glass-fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars. Based on an appropriate damage constitutive model and three-point flexural tests, an advanced finite element (FE) model of a GFRP-reinforced concrete beam was employed to investigate the damage evolution process in terms of crack damage and energy dissipation. Overall, the FE-predicted failure mode and load-deflection response agreed very well with the corresponding experimental data at all stages of flexural loading. Furthermore, the validated FE model was then extended to models of other beam configurations, which were used to investigate the effects of different bar types and different GFRP reinforcement ratios for tensile reinforcement, compression reinforcement and stirrup-type shear reinforcement on the energy dissipation of concrete beams to provide further information beyond that available from the limited experimental data. It is concluded that the developed advanced FE model is suitable as a practical and economical tool, especially in design-oriented parametric studies, for accurate modelling and analysis of the damage behaviour of concrete beams reinforced with GFRP bars.